Everything You Need To Know About Bane From ‘The Dark Knight Rises’

A relatively new introduction to the DC Comics canon of villains, Bane is the ultimate foil for Batman. He’s not some time-defying archetype like Ra’s al Ghul or a batshit crazy dude like The Joker. Instead, he’s one mean bastard in his physical prime with hand-to-hand combat skills as well-honed as the chip on his shoulder. Considering that in the comic books Bane broke Batman’s back and put him out of commission for a spell, The Dark Knight Rises should prove interesting indeed. Here’s all you need to know about the film’s villain, Bane.

Who Is Bane?

No, not these dudes.

Bane is from a fictional country in the Caribbean, Santa Prisca. He has some stupid background story about how he grew up in prison because a corrupt government made him serve out his father’s sentence. Whatever.

Anyway, supposedly his childhood spent in the joint is what makes him this extra diesel bad ass with crazy martial arts skills. While in jail, he not only learned to fight, but also became a man of letters when not hitting the iron. The Jesui Brothers taught him everything he needed to know about the fine arts and humanities, enabling him to become a career super criminal. Gee, now I’m wishing I had grown up in prison.

But it wasn’t all pumping iron and reading books. While in prison, Bane was also used as a guinea pig in an experiment with a substance called Venom, which is sadly not the totally rad black costume that takes over Spiderman. It’s a fictional steroid that makes him ginormous. The down side is, he has to have it pumped directly into his brain every 12 hours, or else he dies. It’s a trade off.

After the prison experiment makes him even tougher, he breaks out and sets out for Gotham. Why? Because he thinks that Batman has been haunting him in his dreams since childhood, which is, y’know, totally normal and stuff. When he gets to Gotham, he busts out all the wacky villains who live inside Arkham Asylum. He eventually breaks Batman’s back leading to a super lame story arc where a character named Azrael becomes Batman and gets some ill battle armor.

What Is Bane?

RAGDOLL IST KRIEG!

Bane is kind of like a monster heel from professional wrestling. For those of you unaware, monster heels are the dudes who don’t feel any pain because they aren’t human and can’t be reasoned with. Examples include The Undertaker before he became a dead biker and Brock Lesnar before he became a total joke. Much like most monster heels, after the initial shock wore off, he was relegated to being a third-tier villain in the DC Comics Universe. He is now part of the Secret Six alongside such epic winners as Catman, Rag Doll and Deadshot. I mean, come on! The dude almost killed Batman, and now he hangs out with some fool in a mask whose power is bending his arms in weird directions. Yeah, Don Didio isn’t totally killing DC or anything.